


An Unfamiliar Place

by ShyZombie



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Dimension Travel, Gen, Mirror Universe, Prince Merlin (Merlin), Roleswap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26670316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyZombie/pseuds/ShyZombie
Summary: "There are people out there who have strongly implied that Uther... is my father.""Ah. I see."Gaius nodded.Merlin spread his arms."And?"Here Gaius leaned forward."If he wasn't you're father, I might have cause to be more alarmed."***Merlin wakes up in an unfamiliar place.
Comments: 47
Kudos: 247





	1. An Unfamiliar Place

"Come on. Up."

Merlin's face scrunched, pressed against something soft. 

His whole head felt soft, warm, and smothered. Like he was sunk into butter. It didn't feel bad, but it did feel vaguely wrong- wrong enough that some sluggish part of him decided that he must either be injured or fevered to be feeling this squishy. If that was the case, he wondered if Gaius would let him sleep in, just this once.

"Mer- _lin_."

' _That's strange,’_ thought Merlin.

' _Gaius sounds awfully like Arthur today_.'

Footsteps pounded closer with a steady, lollingly familiar rhythm- that was broken with a thud.

"Gaaasp! Oh no! THE BANDITS HAVE GOT ME, AND I FEAR I HAVE BEEN MORTALLY WOUNDED! MERLIN!"

Merlin shot up straight so fast his head pounded and his eyes saw black spots. His magic snapped like a hound at the bit. He reined it back last second with a spasm and a jolt that cleared the blinding light to colorful smudges, and then to a smudge shaped bed-

But that wasn't right. It was a bed shaped smudge. An Arthur's bed shaped smudge, to be exact.

However, this wasn't the only cause for confusion. No, the other cause had just sighed, and presently rose from his knees.

The image of Arthur on his knees, more than anything, was making Merlin's 'this is all a fever dream' idea sound more and more likely.

"Arthur, you look..."

Merlin blinked.

"...Terrible."

And he did. Merlin had never seen Arthur with bags under his eyes before. 

Why this was the first thing to catch Merlin's attention rather than the rather more familiar sight of his clothes- Merlin's clothes- could probably be blamed on the blood and magic that still pounded through his veins more than grogginess at this point. 

Fact: 'Panicked Merlin' generally scanned for things wrong with Arthur first, not his clothes. The same could broadly be said for confused Merlin. 

And make no mistake about it- Merlin was very, very confused. 

Maybe there should be a word for seeing a familiar thing in an unfamiliar place. If there was, Merlin didn't know it, and he was proud to say he had a very large vocabulary for a farm-boy from Ealdor.

If such a word did exist, however, in the moment he might have defined it, in two words, as 'Arthur Pendragon'. More specifically, the word could have aptly been applied to Arthur Pendragon wearing Merlin's tunic and trousers.

Merlin scrunched his brow at this seeming contradiction in terms, and also at the strangely irritating fact that his loose fitting tunic almost seemed to fit Arthur better than it did him. At least Arthur wasn't wearing his neckerchief. He didn't know if he could cope with that level of surreality. Surreal-ness. Un-realness.

Was this some kind of joke? 

That would normally be the next thing he thought of when questioning his reality, assuming the dream thing didn't pan out. 

However, he didn't think it was likely. His reasons being: A, the person most likely to find something like this (especially the part where Merlin was in Arthur's bed) funny was Gwaine. B, Arthur never listened to Gwaine if he could help it. C, Arthur had said his clothes felt like fleas, and Arthur even mildly inconveniencing himself for the sake of a prank was a bit of a stretch.

Oblivious to his inner monologue, Arthur just snorted. There was a clank, which drew Merlin's eyes to where his prince set down a platter of food on the small table. He then strode to the wardrobe, and Merlin felt an oddly possessive protest rise behind his open mouth. 

Arthur turned around with a bundle of clothes- familiar, also, but in colours more muted than Arthur preferred to wear- and spoke first.

"You are not getting rid of me today, Merlin. Thank you for the offer in advance, but, believe it or not, some of us actually need to work for our living. Wouldn't want to give your father another reason to think I have poor work ethic now, would we?"

Part of Merlin was still stalled on the fact that Arthur even said thank you, to the extent it took a moment to unravel enough of what he said to stumble again over the mention of- _did he just say his father?_

Merlin's heart stuttered on an image of Balinor.

His mouth flapped open again, but Arthur, this strange, slightly ragged around the sleeves Arthur, shot him as hard a look as ever and his jaw snapped shut.

Arthur turned his full body around, and kicked the wardrobe door closed in a way that made Merlin wince. The clothes came down on the sheets with mild excess force, and a one raised eyebrow.

Arthur then bodily yanked him out of bed by his arm.

"Come on. Up you get!"

His grip was still strong enough to send Merlin into a stumble. That much, at least, hadn't changed. Before he'd fully landed on his feet, Arthur already had him by the strings of his shirt. He yanked them out of their holes even as Merlin stumbled again, though this time in the opposite direction.

"Wha- what- what are you doing?!"

Arthur looked at him in a way that implied he was a bit slow, and spoke slowly to match.

"I,"

He pointed to his chest, and then back to Merlin.

"Am dressing you. Like the complete and utter infant you are."

"I- yes but- you-"

"Merlin."

His eyes narrowed.

"Tell me honestly. Have you been drinking?"

"No, I mean yes-"

A gut feeling tugged on him, one he was used to listening too because it usually kept him from being caught in a lie-

"Last night I may have been at... **the tavern**... but, I mean- you're not..."

His eyes darted up and down Arthur one last time.

"...My servant?"

He winced at his own question, expected a laugh and tensed to dodge any heavy projectiles.

But Arthur didn't laugh like this was a joke at all. He didn't even throw an article of clothing.

He only rolled his eyes.

"We've been over this, Merlin. You don't have to like this any more than I do, but that doesn't change..."

Arthur (not-Arthur) kept talking, but Merlin could only hear white noise, like a ringing in his ears.

Servant. Servant. _Servant._

_'I just called Arthur bloody Pendragon king of the prats a servant.'_

And he didn't deny it.

"...Merlin?"

Merlin snapped back to reality.

"Yes, sire?"

The reply had been an automatic response to being caught out at letting his mind wander. Under the circumstances, however, it didn't seem to be a particularly helpful one.

Arthur's forehead wrinkled, as Gaius might put it, like a lizard's elbow.

"Alright. That's a new one," said Arthur, with a slow step forward. 

Merlin took one last step back, and bumped against the front post of the bed. He gulped.

"Just, I... I think I had a strange dream."

Something twitched in Arthur's face for an instant, an unfamiliar tick of movement that lasted just a second before it fell back into practiced annoyance. 

"Well, you best get over it. You're expected to be at training in less than an hour. Unless,"

He looked Merlin over carefully.

"You think you need to see Gaius first?"

Gaius. Yes. That sounded pretty nice right about now. Maybe he'd know what the hell was going on, or more likely, be able to at least point him in the right direction.

Merlin was having a hard enough time wracking his own mind for ideas. Was everyone enchanted? Sure, there had been some, erm, antagonistic individuals in the past who had advocated for Merlin to take a more active part in world domination, but surely, no one would go so far as to make everyone think Merlin was... what? 

(He had a mounting suspicion of what, though he still wasn't sure he wanted to voice it aloud, even in his head.)

The point was, with that kind of power, why not just make everyone think _they_ were in charge? Why bother with putting Merlin in power at all? Unless they, whoever had done this, had been Emrys fanatics, but that seemed to be a druid thing mostly and unless he was a sorely poor judge of character, stunts like this did not seem like the druids’ style.

What else could it be then? A test? A punishment? Those ideas were slightly more appealing if only because they implied his situation had a built in solution, an out, if only he could trip over the right moral or make the appropriate amends.

Merlin needed answers, hadn't the faintest clue where to start, and when he heard the word 'Gaius' it was all he could do not to start nodding and never stop. As it was, he restrained himself to one or two nods. Hopefully, the effort made him look less like an idiot- or, failing that, at least less insane.

***

Gaius thought he was insane.

"Gaius. I'm not a prince."

Said Merlin, now dressed in very princely clothing, which didn't help much to illustrate his point.

"I think, sire, you will find that you are, and that despite your best efforts, you have yet to land yourself in trouble sufficient for me to believe you will cease to be prince at any time in the near future."

"Gaius, this is insane! Just listen to yourself! There-"

Merlin looked over his shoulder and towards the door, then leaned a slight bit closer.

"There are people out there who have strongly implied that Uther... is my father."

"Ah. I see."

Gaius nodded.

Merlin spread his arms.

"And?"

Here Gaius leaned forward.

"If he wasn't you're father, I might have cause to be more alarmed."

Merlin threw up his arms, paced, spun on his heel, and pointed.

"I am. Not. Crazy."

"Of course not, sire," Gaius said, in much the same voice he used when he claimed Merlin was just at the tavern.

"Merlin. My name is Merlin. And you- you are Gaius. I've been staying with you, living with you for years now and, and you know me, you know I have magic-"

A cold horror widened Gaius's eyes. 

The moment he closed the shutters on that expression was synchronized perfectly with a smack upside Merlin's ear.

"Owe! _Oi!_ I thought you said I was the prince!"

"That you are, which is exactly why you should know better than to joke about such things. You've had your fun, but this delusion, or game, or whatever you want to call it grows dangerous. Now,"

Gaius turned and swept towards a cabinet of potions.

"Arthur informed me you've been having strange dreams."

"I didn't really mean that," Merlin said, and rubbed his head.

"It was just sort of an excuse, and- wait, Arthur already came to visit you about that?"

"If you will recall, he informed me last week, when you first brought your concerns to his attention. Sire."

No, no he really didn't recall any week-ago claim to strange dreams, and privately, he thought that was the bigger issue here. Well, yes, Merlin had bad dreams before. That certainly wasn't anything new, and they usually involved him flayed and nailed to the pyre. But those certainly weren't anything he'd risk sharing. He hadn't even told Gaius about those, hadn't wanted to worry him, though after really bad nights he was perceptive enough to be gentle with him anyway.

And that was the thing, wasn't it? Even if he wasn't entirely open with Gaius, they had grown more open with each other than anyone else. Gaius was practiced enough at keeping his own secrets to be able to see right through him more often than not. 

But that was okay. Merlin trusted Gaius. He knew the old man had secrets of his own, but neither of them kept secret that they had secrets, so to speak, and that was possibly as honest as either of them knew how to be. Gaius had certainly never tried to hide his concern for Merlin, from Merlin, before.

If he ignored the part where Gaius hit him, then the way he acted wasn't too different from how he sometimes treated Arthur.

Then another, worse, and potentially more accurate descriptor occurred to Merlin, and he shivered.

_It wasn't too different from how Gaius treated Morgana._

This wasn't the Gaius he knew.

Or rather, it was, but it wasn't the Gaius that knew him, and that made all the difference. 

Gaius was a man who had lived through the purge while his friends burned, who had kept breathing through the smell of their ashes on his clothes. It had never occurred to Merlin before, with such clarity, the significance of the exception Gaius had made for him; how much this man who had lost nearly everyone he loved was willing to risk for him and him alone. 

Or rather, had been willing to risk.

Suddenly, Merlin didn’t feel quite so exceptional. Maybe he'd never done anything to deserve that kind of love in the first place. But he'd be lying if he said the loss of it didn't hurt.

All right. So, Gaius was bust. 

Merlin accepted the draft with the expected level of contrition and made what excuses he could to leave the suddenly suffocating room as soon as possible.

Where else did he turn to when he couldn't rely solely on himself?

In order of increasing desperation, that list usually consisted of:

  1. The library.
  2. Kilgharrah.
  3. The druids.



He really hoped it didn't come down to that last one. The druids were nomadic and a pain to track down for one thing. For another, everyone apparently everyone believed he was Uther Pendragon's son, which he imagined might complicate things.

***

Arthur’s not-father sipped from his wine goblet.

"I heard word from sir Leon that you were unwell today."

Merlin nodded. By this point, he'd managed to pare his nods down to one. One nod was decidedly princelier. It also helped that it was hard to be overly enthusiastic about anything when in the presence of Uther Pendragon.

Particularly, when he was the object of his attention, as opposed to filling cups from behind the dining table and safely retreating to far corners, and the king looked saner than he had in months.

Morgana was at the table too, seated at the left, while Merlin was seated to the right. That was somehow the third most surreal thing he'd seen today- the second being Arthur waiting in said corners to fill his said cup. 

While trying not to gawk at that Merlin had kept the corner of his eye on Morgana, and Morgana had continued to politely sip what was really rather exceptional broth. Though she hadn't done anything visibly dastardly as of yet, Merlin had been able to use her as a sort of benchmark for his own etiquette.

Her approach to the food, for one thing, seemed to be a very sensible example to follow. Somehow, Merlin had never fully appreciated the number of courses served to the royal table over the duration of what was ostensibly a light supper (singular). While none of the courses were very large, it was still easy to underestimate how quickly a peasant stomach rationed on a plain diet of Gaius's porridge, even one treated to the occasional stolen royal sausage, could begin to revolt.

Uther's eyes trailed briefly to his mostly untouched 'light' meats. It worked to Merlin's favor, in that instant, that he didn't have to work at it to look a little sick.

"To the extent to which you were unable to lead the knights in training."

So the prince they thought he was was apparently proficient enough at head-whacking to be expected to teach thickheaded knights the proper way to whack other people over their heads. 

Merlin nodded again.

Yes, now that that was cleared up, Merlin felt entirely justified in believing that his decision to skip training and hide in the library had been the correct one for everyone involved.

***

"-And that's the last thing I remember, before waking up here. Gaius told me that he'd told Arthur I'd been at the tavern, and I passed out the moment I hit my mattress."

And yes, it had definitely been his mattress, not Arthur's. He could tell the difference.

"And you remember nothing before you returned to Gaius?"

"That's just it."

Merlin threw his shoulders into a shrug.

"I know I had to have done something, something important, or been in some sort of trouble. Otherwise, Gaius wouldn't have had to come up with an excuse."

Merlin paced a small circle in front of Kilgharrah's claws.

"But that whole day is a blur. I can't even remember if I got my chores finished."

Probably not, given his record.

The dragon chuckled. The bursts of air turned into a slight warm breeze that ruffled his hair. The trees in the clearing swayed around them, as if in chorus.

Merlin’s arms folded.

"This isn't funny."

"No, indeed. I can see nothing humorous in the son of Uther Pendragon calling to me in the tongue of a dragonlord to fret over such things as drink and chores."

"I wasn't-"

_‘I wasn’t actually at the tavern. Probably.'_

Or.

_'I wasn't complaining about my chores so much as using them to illustrate a point.'_

But the dragon would probably somehow find both of those responses funny too, so Merlin moved on.

"I'm not a Pendragon."

Yes, that was definitely the most important thing to address here.

"No," the dragon agreed, and his large eyes glowed ever so slightly in the twilight.

"You certainly are not, though how this came to be so I can not say."

The magic in Merlin's chest flickered.

"So you believe me, then?"

"I believe, young warlock, I have much to tell you about destiny. The realm you describe, where Arthur is the once and future king, is foreign to me. Yet this need not make it any less real."

"I... I don't understand. Are you saying this isn't an enchantment?"

The dragon straightened his forelegs and long neck to an even more impressive height before he spoke.

"Destiny takes not just one path, but many. Rare few are gifted to see the path ahead, and fewer still the path under their feet. Few prophecies can be said with certainty to reflect the truth of the world to which they are given. And yet, all prophecies are true."

"What?"

Kilgharrah huffed.

"When you make a choice, Merlin, you do not simply make one. You make all choices, and from that choice come other worlds. In this regard you are not special. It is because every choice that can be made will be made that it can be said all futures are inevitable. To see one man stray from his path is not exceptional. All it signifies is that the seers have found the wrong star to guide them in a sky of thousands. What is unprecedented is to see a man not stray from his path, but fall through it all together."

"No."

Merlin shook his head.

"Still don't understand."

The dragon let out a surprisingly human sounding sigh.

"You're in another world, Merlin. A world with people very similar to those you knew, but who have lived different lives."

"Right. So, how do I get back to my old one?"

"Perhaps you failed to hear me when I called your situation 'unprecedented'. I'm sorry, but I fear that in this matter I can be of no further help. I am unfamiliar with what manner of magicks could even attempt such a thing. Perhaps in the course of this path, this too, was meant to be, though it was something I failed to predict. For my own part, I can only wonder if this won't invalidate the prophecy I presented to the other warlock in its entirety."

Other warlock? Could he mean...?

But he couldn't.

But assuming Merlin here was like Arthur and Arthur was like Merlin-

" _Arthur?_ "

"Indeed."

"You're saying Arthur is a warlock here. And his destiny is different- possibly even more different, because I'm here now."

Merlin squinted up at Kilgharrah.

"What was his destiny, exactly?"

"That, young warlock,"

The dragon shifted slightly,

"May be a thing difficult to hear."

"Tell me," said Merlin.

Because Merlin never learned. 

The dragon puffed his chest out even larger.

"Very well. On the path that may yet lie before him, it is Arthur's destiny to prevent you from becoming king. A prospect he has thus far found rather difficult, considering how peculiarly fond he has grown of the one whose clothes you now wear. This does not, however, change the fact that he is destined to kill you."

Merlin processed. 

He processed some more.

Finally, he blinked, and pulled back.

"Me?"

Kilgharrah’s jaw pulled into a mirthless smile.

"More or less."

"But... why?"

The dragon lowered only his head, until he looked Merlin in the eye.

"Why, so the princess Morgana can take her throne, of course."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little idea. May or may not continue.
> 
> Edit:
> 
> Chapter 2 is coming.


	2. Prince Merlin Partakes in Headwhacking

The first thing that had struck plain-old-servant-Merlin when he'd handled Arthur's sword for the first time was this:

For a piece of metal that held the power to end someone's life, it was surprisingly light. Even Excalibur, after it had been varnished in dragon flame, carried none of the weight that would seem to imply; like for all its associations with a great destiny that destiny itself was in fact carried by something- or in someone- else.

Or, less poetically, like there wasn't actually much of an advantage in a heavy sword as compared to a light one, like speed was important for lunges or thin blades cut deeper or some such. Arthur had tried to explain it to him once, and honestly, it had all gone a little over his head.

The point was, a typical knight's long sword didn't, in fact, weigh more than three pounds, was well balanced, and was surprisingly manageable in the hands of a peasant already accustomed to hard labor. Not that most peasants would ever get the chance to touch one, let alone wield one. 

Which might be why, when one saw a Camelot knight ride through their little village for the first time, with their red cape and their muscled steed and their showing sword hilt, they would think 'power' and they would think 'heavy'. Because heavy and power seemed like natural friends. Anybody who felt crushed under power felt like it was heavy just as anyone who respected the power they carried also thought it was heavy. So swords ought to be heavy.

Strangely enough, Arthur's sword (other-Merlin's actually, though it was hard to think of the familiar sword he'd cleaned and sharpened as anything but Arthur's) felt a little heavier now that he was a prince.

Though Arthur had clipped that sword to Merlin's belt, most of the actual sparring done between knights, as well as between knights and unfortunate practice dummies, was done with wooden sticks. That was fine with Merlin. Sticks were nice. Sticks were less pointy than swords, and really, Merlin wished Arthur would practice with sticks more often considering how well Merlin could sympathize with those dummies.

First scan of the training field: 

It was a familiar place, but lacked the most familiar faces- namely, the Knights of the Round Table, with the exception of Leon. Merlin was disappointed but not surprised. A sane Uther would have hardly approved of Gwaine and Lancelot and all the rest.

Arthur mostly sat out the training. He picked up after cast aside equipment and occasionally provided drink from a pitcher and cups. Based on this alone, Merlin got the distinct impression that prince Merlin was significantly nicer on a daily basis to servant Arthur than Prince Arthur was to him.

Merlin gave the sack side of the dummy one last whack that shuddered from the wood to up the bones of his own arms. He felt the sweat bead down on him under chainmail and padding, and checked the sun. 

It was obvious from the glances he got from the knights that they thought he was off his form. Right then, warm-ups were over. It was time for something he could actually do.

"Alright, everyone, back twenty paces. Arthur? Would you please-"

Arthur gestured at a row of spears propped against stone fence, having apparently read his mind some point between stick-whacks. He impressively hauled the lot into his arms and shuffled one to Merlin first, and then to each of the other men.

"Right."

Merlin had seen Arthur throw a spear before, though admittedly he'd been a little preoccupied in trying to block it at the time. He fumbled his slick palms up and down the shaft until he found the least wobbly part, and could relax his grip just a little without worrying about the whole thing tipping over. He dropped his left hand to hold the weapon in his dominant right... and that was as far as his knowledge of proper spear throwing went.

More of it that not was just common sense and a wince from a man he recognized vaguely as sir Geraint told him that was about as far as it extended. He noted Geraint's own grip, and spread his thumb out a little.

"All right, today I'm going to try a bit of a new technique. One I read about. In a book."

That was technically true, actually. He'd just left out the little detail that it had been a book of magic.

Merlin hefted the spear behind his shoulder and closed his eyes to hide the gold. He heard the skeptical clink of armor in response but ignored it. It was easy to let the inner swell of his magic fill his ears like a rush of blood, to slow time enough to think, to expand his focus on those gold veins and swirls behind his eyelids. He visualized that dummy, that sack-wrapped wooden pell, until the gold bled into its shape and burned its afterimage into his retina.

For good measure, because this was supposed to be an impressive new technique and all, he turned around and away from the line of knights. Then he whispered a quiet word under his breath. And took a breath. Merlin tossed the spear backwards. There was the sound of a hit, but no bounce; metal that cracked into wood.

When Merlin opened his eyes, he saw that the spear had hit the dummy's wooden neck dead center. Also, the shaft had apparently dug in several more inches than was expected and the sharp end had splintered straight through to the other side.

Merlin nodded his one nod like this was completely intentional. Several mouths hung open, and while Leon kept a better lid on his composure than most, his eyes still bulged a little like a toad whose neck had just been wrung by Gaius. 

Merlin purposefully didn't look for Arthur's reaction.

"Mm-hm. Right, carry on then. I'd like to see how your usual technique compares."

He was met by a chorus of "yes, sire" and shared confused looks. 

He didn't blame them. Sometimes he confused himself.

***

Given that training was over and the knights dismissed, Merlin was a bit surprised to be pelted from behind by a wooden cudgel. He caught himself in a trip, hissed, and rubbed at his backside's newest promise of a bruise.

"Shame you can't dodge as well as you throw."

Merlin stilled in his rubbing and unbent a little.

"Arthur?"

"What is it, then?"

Arthur's hands went to his hips as he circled him.

"Something's been throwing you off. You can either tell me what, or listen while I keep asking."

"Arthur-"

"-And asking. Merlin. I may not have been around to remind you, seeing as you dismissed me again, but surely, you couldn't have simply forgotten about yesterday's hunting trip."

"The hunting-?"

Merlin stalled with a cough, cleared his throat, and channeled his inner prat.

"I mean, I am the prince. I don't have to explain myself to you."

Arthur stared him down for a moment. Then he turned, and strode a last few steps to where the cudgel lay on the ground.

  
"All right. Maybe I'll try asking you in another way."

In a single movement the weapon was flipped into Arthur's fists. From above, the stick cut down to sweep his legs and on reflex Merlin jumped. Fast. Arthur had always been fast, and was fast to the eye even through magic slowed syrup.

Merlin ducked a forward thrust in an inadvisably backwards way that unbalanced him into a series of steps that just happened to twist him under Arthur's arm. He popped up again behind Arthur's back even as Arthur's back twisted and the audible wind of another near miss nicked Merlin's ear. Merlin yelped, and not so much sidestepped as side-fell to the grass with a roll. 

The cudgel hit the ground beside him. Merlin scrabbled to his feet.

"What was that for?!"

If Arthur took the time to learn to fight like that on top of his chores, it was no wonder he looked so tired all the time!

"Oh you know, had to get practice in some way, seeing as you _skipped_."

Merlin wasn't entirely sure what Arthur was talking about anymore but that was okay, because his mind supplied his earlier excuse and he grasped at it.

"I was sick!"

Arthur snorted. 

"If you were sick I would have been the one who had to listen to you complain about it. But instead, you ran away. So what happened?"

Merlin groaned.

Even in another life, where there was no reason Merlin shouldn't have the upper hand, Arthur somehow still managed to push him around.

"Merlin."

" _Arthur_."

Merlin closed his eyes for a moment, then met Arthur's steady gaze.

"Do you think I'd make a good king?"

It came out as 'I'd, with an implied 'would I' rather than 'will I'. If Arthur noticed the slip he couldn’t tell.

His lips pursed. Merlin waited for a moment.

"What brought this on?"

The dragon.

"Nothing. I just care about your opinion, is all."

Arthur breathed in through his nose. His shoulders expanded, and his jaw squared.

"...Then I think you will. Learning to listen is an important thing."

Merlin grinned. He couldn’t help it.

"Think very highly of yourself, do you?"

Arthur deflated with a punch to Merlin's shoulder.

"Sod off. You know what I meant."

"Prat."

"Idiot."

They laughed.

For a moment, it was easy to forget this wasn't his home, and this wasn’t his Arthur. But then Arthur brushed him down, and reached to unhook prince Merlin's sword belt right then and there, and the moment was gone.

***

It had started just a week ago.

Arthur had heard the strangles of air from behind the unwound curtain.

He could have walked past. He could have just ignored it. He should've. He didn't have to push that curtain aside and he wasn't good at dealing with that sort of thing anyway and he’d probably just make whatever it was worse for whoever was involved.

That was what he told himself. He didn't know why he hadn't listened.

Arthur drew back the darkness of the alcove, let in the light. An awkward 'sorry' was already on his lips when Merlin's sleeve smeared away from his face and Arthur's throat locked and the joints of Arthur's fingers locked around the fabric. 

"Arthur. Hello." 

Merlin swallowed. 

"Sorry, I just- I needed a little dark and quiet. _Headache_. I’ve been having these headaches you see. Gaius thinks it might have something to do with lack of sleep."

Though his smile didn't waver, Merlin's eyes were red.

"A headache?"

Merlin nodded, still with that smile and something in Arthur's ribs strained.

"Yes, but I think the worst of it is past now."

He looked past Arthur at the window of hall-light.

"So if you don't mind..."

"Oh."

Arthur let the curtain fall and dumbly stepped aside.

"Thank you."

But then-

"Wait. No."

He grabbed for Merlin's arm and Merlin's arm turned and bumped against his in the small space, and Arthur still didn't know what he was doing but he was committed now dammit so he dug his feet in.

"You're lying."

Merlin rolled his eyes.

"Arthur, does it even matter? It's nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing."

At that Merlin turned a shade pinker around his large ears, always so prominent, always a dead giveaway, even in the sliver lighting.

"You heard that? I mean, it was a _really bad headache_."

"Merlin-"

"I mean it, Arthur."

Merlin squeezed some of the brightness out of his eyes, and when they glinted back to meet his they seemed a little harder.

"There's nothing you can do. And that's what you want, isn't it? To do great things. To help people. Well, there's nothing you can do about this, so there's no point in hearing about it."

"Merlin, you..."

Arthur breathed, loosened his grip, but didn't let go. A beat fell between them.

"…All right. How about just one thing? You don’t have to tell me everything but... just one."

That was fair, wasn’t it? Flip the tables and that was his relationship with Merlin in a nutshell; let out just enough Arthur, of Arthur's real hopes, concerns, and dreams so that he wasn’t pretending, while holding back just enough so that he wouldn't be killed.

Merlin took a long blink, and then his face scrunched in a few conflicted directions at once like he couldn’t quite believe that _Arthur,_ who's emotional comprehension Merlin had once compared to that of a turnip, had managed to cobble out some semblance of sensible advice.

"Wow. You know, Arthur, sometimes I wonder if you’re actually as much of a dollop-head as you look."

Arthur would not be diverted. He stepped back into the wall to give Merlin some space, and then crossed his arms.

"Come on Merlin, spit it out. Just one thing."

Merlin slumped against the archway and sighed, body half in darkness, nose half peeked beyond the curtain. From what Arthur could see, the corridor was empty. It was just them. Merlin raised his head to the shadows of the ceiling, and the shadows fell over his face.

"...Arthur. Do you think I'd make a good king?"

'I'd.' He'd said 'I'd', as in 'would I', As if he hadn't been destined to be king from the day he was born.

( _Had he?_ )

(Arthur banished the thought.)

He frowned.

"What's this all of a sudden?"

Merlin huffed a short laugh and turned back to the open light of the corridor.

"Nothing, like I said. I just had a bad dream is all."

***

Occasionally, Arthur considered himself lucky he wasn't born a prince. So many expectations; your whole life planned out for you from the day you were born. He saw Merlin struggle with that everyday, and in a way, in a very real tangible way he understood. 

Prophecy, after all, could be equally overbearing. The one advantage he had over Merlin in that regard was that he didn't have everyone, everyday, reminding him of how important it was for him to fulfill his duty. More now than ever that the dragon was gone, Arthur had the luxury to forget. Hell, he had the luxury to be a stubborn ass about forgetting. And Merlin made it easy to forget. Because Merlin was a good person.

He had to be to put up with such a stubborn ass, after all. Though to be fair he didn't always. If he were in a particularly sulky mood he'd throw more days off at Arthur than he knew what to do with. But Arthur, being damn stubborn again, would come right in and drag him out of bed and force breakfast down the skinny lout's throat and scrub his floors anyways. Because it was Merlin.

And it was Merlin who had smiled the first day he came to Camelot, when he asked him what brought him to Gaius and Arthur had confessed it wasn't medicine, that he'd never really had any vocation for it. Merlin had asked him what had brought him here then, and Arthur had told him:

"It doesn't matter."

"Why not?"

And something about the way Merlin had asked that question, the incline of his head or the wide-open closeness of those eyes, despite the distance, had made him answer honestly.

"A peasant can't be a knight."

It wasn't exactly "I was hoping Gaius could teach me how to control my magic so no one chops my head off," but neither was it something Arthur normally made a point of sharing. It was still a secret, and it was almost exhilarating to just spit it out to a total stranger.

Merlin had hummed, tucked his empty arms behind his back. Almost pulled away. Almost looked away, in a way that immediately made Arthur think he too had something to hide.

"Well, you never know. Things could change."

Those words, that light, innocuous comment, had took on a whole new meaning when Arthur learned that Merlin, that noble he had found waiting amiably for the court physician, was in fact the crown prince.

Apparently he hadn't thought it was important to lead with that. 

Arthur couldn't help it. He was intrigued.

The prince's words followed him to his cot that night.

_Things could change._

And when the dragon spoke into his head Arthur's name bled over Merlin's voice like a second echo in a cave, until both had twined into a single thought:

_Arthur._

_Arthur._

_Things could change._

For a stupid moment, on those dark stairs, it felt like he could be part of that change, whatever it was. 

And then the dragon had opened its damn mouth.

Arthur rubbed his face with his hands, and smeared his nose with soapsuds. Not that he really cared about that. Relatively speaking the soap off Merlin's floor was cleaner than his bed in Ealdor, which also happened to be a floor.

He thought he'd gotten over this. He thought he'd moved on. As far as he was concerned, the dragon had lost any right to Arthur's trust the moment he decided to repay a promise honored with burning half of Camelot to the ground.

Though even before that Arthur had hated to rely on him for help. As soon as he'd decided that inducing Arthur to regicide was a lost cause that big mouth had shut tight as the lock on his chains, and the only way to pry it open had been to say Morgana was in danger and mean it or make promises he wasn't sure he would be able to keep, which was another thing Arthur hated. Arthur made vows rare enough that when he did they had the privilege of being some of the only truths he spoke in his life; the foundation that bore the weight of all the lies.

Maybe things would have been different if Arthur had been a better liar, or even just smarter. But unfortunately, if you didn't count hitting things, and magic, which he was good at in the way he was good at breathing- as in, it worked just fine until he actually had to think about it and so didn't really count- the only thing Arthur had really ever been any good at was speaking his mind.

And Arthur had told the dragon, to the face, that he refused to murder a man who had done nothing wrong and that he could kindly shove his destiny up his ass.

It had been years since then and Merlin still hadn’t done anything wrong, even if he was having nightmares, and had abandoned his duties, and missed his latest front to legitimately teach a servant how to knock him on his backside where his knights couldn't see because he had dropped everything to... to what? Read some of those books he'd skipped yesterday’s training for?

It wasn't about the dragon, he told himself, when he stopped by the library after Merlin had left. Arthur had made up his mind to use some of his newly acquired free time (seeing as Merlin had laid him off for the rest of the day and he'd neglected to inform Gaius of that fact) to casually ask Geoffrey just what exactly those books had been about.

"He expressed some interest in history and the royal genealogical records; that sort of thing. Hardly unorthodox for a prince, I should think."

"But you didn't actually see him reading the books?"

"Well, I hardly know what else he'd be doing in that wing."

There were a number of contentions Arthur didn't voice to that. For one, he doubted if Geoffrey would actually notice Merlin leave whilst sufficiently absorbed in... Whatever he did all day. For another, Arthur happened to know for reasons that could get him arrested that the library contained at least one secret room full of very forbidden books (which could also get a man arrested).

"Which he never left."

Specifically, he never left the library with the books, and Geoffrey never saw them. Which meant besides what he'd asked about openly, Merlin could have just as well been reading something he didn't want anyone to know about. Right after another bad dream. This was all very suspiciously timed.

"Thank you, Geoffrey."

***

"Something's troubling him," Arthur said idly, while Gaius shot him a look for being idle.

Arthur sighed and picked up the mortar and pestle again. Gaius nodded, and then went back to his own reading before he spoke. Gaius was impressive at multi-tasking like that.

"By 'him' can I assume you to mean our erstwhile prince?"

Arthur continued like he hadn't heard him, because that much was blatantly obvious.

"He's been ignoring me, shutting himself in the library, and today he threw a spear at a wooden pell and practically broke it in half. I refuse to believe it's just the dreams anymore. Gaius, what _exactly_ did he tell you?"

Gaius adjusted his glass magnifying lens over the page. Then his hands curled over the edge of the worktable.

"His highness informed me, with no small amount of shouting, might I add, that he wasn't, in fact... the prince."

Arthur's stomach dropped, though he swallowed his worry with a twist of his lips.

"Funny, he reminded me of the exact opposite earlier today."

Arthur's pestle came to rest on the side of the bowl again, and Gaius sighed.

"He also told me- asked me if I thought he would make a good king."

Gaius pushed aside the book and put down the glass at last, though he didn't look at Arthur.

"Arthur, understand that when Merlin came to me he was speaking nonsense. He seemed to be under the very real impression that Uther wasn't his father."

Arthur fought the urge to be incredulous.

"Are you sure he meant that?"

Though they didn't always see eye to eye, Arthur couldn't think of any event extreme enough to make Merlin disavow Uther in that way, to anyone. For all his many idiocies Merlin took things like family and responsibility as seriously as they deserved, and his father was inextricably tied to both.

"While I doubt he meant it in the way you are thinking, I fear the only alternative would have him declared unsound of mind."

Arthur wouldn't say Merlin had been acting unsound that day, exactly, or at least not anymore unsound than usual. But he had been acting strange.

"He couldn't really have forgotten he was the prince. Surely."

Being prince in particular was a thing that followed Merlin everywhere, every moment of everyday, just like Arthur's magic, and so presumably would be just as hard a thing to forget. Arthur couldn't imagine a thing in the world that would make him forget about his magic. Except, maybe, more magic. But strangely enough, Gaius had yet to mention the possibility of an enchantment even once.

And he still wouldn't break eye contact with the far wall. 

Arthur narrowed his eyes.

"What aren't you telling me, Gaius?"

Arthur walked to beside the table and gave his shoulder a gentle shake.

" _Gaius_. There's something else, isn't there?"

Gaius breathed, slowly, like a tired crinkle of leaves. He looked a little rumpled himself.

"I'm afraid, Arthur, that he has arrived at the conclusion his dreams mean magic."

"But that's impossible."

A shiver crawled down his spine and straightened it. 

"He's Merlin. He's a Pendragon."

Either point should have been ample evidence against the claim. He clung to these truths even as the exact words of the dragon tingled in his ears:

'The false heir is dangerous.'

Gaius said nothing.

***

Gaius never told Arthur that none of Merlin's claims were as outlandish as they sounded.

After all, if Uther wasn't Merlin's father, than he couldn't be the crown prince. If Uther hadn't sired Merlin, than the king couldn't be his father.

It followed that if Uther wasn't Merlin's father there was an obvious reason why Merlin might have magic.

However, the events surrounding Merlin's birth and the deal Uther made with the demon that stole what remained of Ygraine's life were secrets Gaius swore to take to his grave, and so he said nothing.

***

Morgana was an angel.

"A princess's most important social role," her tutors had told her, "is to be an angel to her own abode, and an angel to her subjects. A princess's true power, as a symbol as in politics, lies in her charity."

From her earliest years, Morgana had been schooled in the language of proper etiquette and gifts. She had never been discouraged from dispensing what amounted to appropriate tokens among the poor from her own living salary. For the most part, Morgana was the steward of her own funds. 

As Camelot's only princess, Morgana had been delegated many of the tasks relating to the management of the internal staff. It was important that a princess learned to manage her own household, so that by the time she married she could run her husband's like a successful guild.

A strong heart made a strong body, and the citadel was the heart of Camelot. Morgana's body beat with that heart, and her heart beat for its people. 

Rather than indulge in pretty needlework or poetry, Morgana dedicated herself fully to this role. Her zeal was, perhaps, what some would consider beyond appropriate.

While it was perfectly acceptable, expected even that a princess should bestow favors among the servants at a feast or gathering, it was a very different matter for a princess to wander, unescorted save for her maidservant, into the lower town- to brush her skirts against window refuse and horse dung.

And yet every day she could get away with it, Morgana dispensed with the pomp and ceremony and the ethereal gliding and took the dirty hands of her people in her own. Morgana knew about funds, and Guinevere, who lived in the lower town, always knew where to find the people most in need. Together, they both made themselves angels.

However, Morgana was more than just an angel of charity. When she needed to be, she could also be an angel of death.

Though it wasn't very publicly acknowledged, there was a precedent for teaching the ladies of a castle to fight. That way, if all the men were used up, the castle still had one last line of defense. If the king and prince were also dead, in a pinch the castle would still have a royal in charge that knew a thing or two about tactics and the logistics of swordplay.

Like most of the things in her life, Morgana had pushed this precedent a bit further than was strictly proper. All the best swords to pierce armor were light and her arms were strong after all, so there was no reason that she shouldn't pick one up.

Merlin and Arthur hunted in the adjacent woods every other day, and no less than once a week she joined Merlin for a very respectable ride. Merlin had never cared much for the sport before, but it seemed he had rather taken to it once Arthur came along. What they got up to in the forest when no one else was around was their business. Occasionally, they even caught something, and when they didn’t, the favorite excuse was to blame it on Arthur’s bickering.

It irked her in the way things sometimes irked Morgana, maybe more than they should that people looked at her in her gossamer clothes and pointed shoes and couldn't imagine she could take care of herself if she needed to, when there were traps to tie and rabbits to catch and it didn't break her back to sleep under the stars. But she did all those things anyway, so in the end their belief meant little. Never nothing, because she was still a public figure, but facts were still facts, and Morgana was in fact a fighter.

It was something that Gwen knew, that Merlin understood when he invited her on adventures, that Arthur had learned when she sparred with him, and that the old woman could have sensed, even had she not known who she was when she pulled her aside and into a dark gap between the houses of the lower town.

"There is a man who means to kill the prince," the woman said.

 _'Well, that certainly isn't anything new,'_ Morgana thought.

She didn't want to be rude, however, so she clasped the woman's hands to let her know she meant to take her concern seriously. It was a horrible feeling to be dismissed when you felt you had something important to share.

"What have you heard?"

The woman looked both ways and even up, then pulled the threadbare hood of her cloak tighter around her face. She slipped one boney hand from Morgana's clasp and lifted it so that her sleeve fell back, and Morgana could see just a tease of a druid triskelion.

"It is what I know, and what I know is that the prince is to be killed by a servant of magic."

"You mean a sorcerer?"

That still didn't terribly narrow down the pool of suspects.

The woman's heavy brow folded over her eyes and she nodded.

"There are those who believe the prince was sent to upset the balance of this world, and should he take the throne, he would open the gateway to someplace darker."

"A gateway?"

"As there is a gateway between the living and the dead, as there is a gateway to Avalon, which no mortal can see, there are gateways to stranger worlds still. I know it is the belief of his would-be assassins that the prince was placed here when the gates were weak for such a purpose by those who cannot truly touch this plane, as a physical conduit for their will."

It sounded ludicrous, though she knew from her observations of court how ridiculous stories could sprout from the mere smallest kernel of truth. That didn't mean those stories weren't dangerous. All that mattered was that someone believed them.

Morgana looked the woman up and down. Poor, dangerously thin, though that, like all appearances, could mean little if magic was involved. Her eyes held no telling fleck of gold, but had a fierceness to them she recognized in the mirror. Perhaps she'd have to be a little fierce, to be a druid and impart such a warning to a Pendragon. 

"I take it you do not believe this yourself?"

"I believe the signs have been misread, that this foretold disaster may not yet come to pass, and that to kill the prince in haste is unjust. But lest the seers are right, Princess Morgana Pendragon, let you be warned: if the day comes when the prince is no longer the prince, it may be already too late."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure:
> 
> Though I was winging it when I started, I have since developed a basic idea of where this story is going to go (i.e. end goals, backstory to reveal, some beats to hit), though not a super structured outline. This is my usual method, though usually I wait until a thing is completed to start posting, just in case. This story is not complete yet.
> 
> Timeline:
> 
> "An Unfamiliar Place" takes place after season 3 finale, but before season 4 episode 2, "The Darkest Hour" part 2. Presently in the cannon timeline Uther is insane and Morgana has freshly betrayed Camelot. The Knights of the Round Table have been established. Lancelot isn't dead yet. Arthur is regent but Uther is still alive. Aithusa hasn't been hatched. Excalibur hasn't fallen into Arthur's possession. And so on.
> 
> (Of course, in the alt. timeline, a lot of that stuff didn't happen; Morgana is still around and Uther isn't insane.)


	3. Meanwhile in Kansas...

Morgana couldn't approach Merlin about Merlin directly, so she did the next best thing: she approached Arthur. 

She found him in the library. He'd made a sort of corner for himself, back pressed hard against sharp cut wood and softer book spines, with more books stacked like turrets to his left. (He should have known better than to leave his right flank wide open.)

One more book was spread open across his knees, and Morgana was able to trace the upside down letters of her name on its pages, flourished next to Merlin's and under 'Uther' and 'Ygraine' to form the most recent branch of the Pendragon family tree.

Morgana smiled.

"Some light reading for Gaius I assume?"

Arthur must not have heard the click of her shoes because he nearly banged his head against the shelf.

"Morgana."

He straightened from his hunch a little but didn't actually bother to stand- which said everything one needed to know about Arthur's opinion of manners, really- and coughed.

"Yes, that is correct. Did you know...That some diseases are carried in the blood?"

"I didn't. Anything in particular you’re concerned about? A matter of national security, perhaps? Don't tell me Uther's finally gone mad?"

That one finally earned her some eye contact.

"I merely jest. Father knows I don't mean a thing. Though of course, if I weren’t me, I wouldn't repeat it. Or tell him I said it."

"I wouldn't."

"Good. So what's this about then?"

Feeling duly acknowledged, Morgana slid silk against wood all the way down to a spot of dust on the floor next to Arthur's even as he craned his book away.

"What I said, it's just-"

"Hmm," she clicked her tongue.

"What Merlin's been reading. I see."

He relaxed the heavy tome's awkward angle and sighed.

"...How did you know?"

Her eyebrows rose. 

"How did you?"

His eyes flicked to the side.

"It so happened to be the only book from this shelf that wasn't covered in dust."

"Clever. Well, seeing as you're so observant, there hasn't been anything... off you've noticed about my brother and your dear friend Merlin as of late, has there?"

Arthur breathed out his nose.

"Such as why he's taken such a sudden interest in genealogy, you mean?"

The incline of Morgana's head was punctuated by the tinkle of jewels. 

"The thing is, Morgana,"

Said Arthur (and there he was, looking away again),

"I'm really not sure I _should_ tell you. Something about 'patient confidentiality' and all that- especially important when your patient is a royal who could sack you, or so I've been told[i]."

My, what a big word. Indeed, _confidentiality_ had always been one of Gaius's core principles, and if she was honest, Arthur was probably right to identify it as one of the reasons the man stayed on as long as he had. It seemed to be a lesson Arthur had taken to heart; discretion, or at least discretion when it was convenient to him. Not that he was particularly good at it. 

She wasn't even certain Arthur had noticed he'd inadvertently given away that whatever was bothering Merlin was at least partly medical in nature, but she didn't point it out. Instead, she played the card that broke most rules by default.

"I'm _family_. Surely that doesn't apply to me. And surely, you don't believe for a second that Merlin could sack you."

Arthur stood up, and so did Morgana. She watched him stretch his neck and back at the ceiling with some amusement.

"No, you're right. I don't. I'd come right back if he ever tried."

Arthur closed the tome in what was ultimately a pointless gesture, considering Arthur himself was such an open book. He pretended to be interested in the opposite shelf while Morgana hummed, and deliberately wandered some distance away.

"Let's see now,"

She said, 

"If Arthur won't tell me what's going on, then what can I do? Shall I look for clues of my own?" 

Her eyes drifted to his pile, and her index finger jittered light down the aisle of book-spines as she walked.

"Are there any other books that aren't so dusty? Maybe... this one?"

She strained her toes to hook a finger over a book on a high shelf- and then fell back on her heels when the shelf folded away from her touch.

"Morgana-"

Arthur hissed behind her until the door had opened and his words had run dry. 

***

Morgana was the first to move past the threshold. Arthur drifted into the space she left behind, past an invisible line where the air was somehow colder. The room had the feel of a cellar, in spite of being above ground and in spite of the warm weather. The effect was disconcerting, disorientating, and set it apart from the secret room Arthur had found before.

There was a sudden mechanical sound, and Arthur jumped forward just in time to see the case swing closed behind them. Morgana's foot had sunk ankle deep into stone. When nothing else moved, she reeled it back, carefully.

After that, and mindful of his track record, Arthur kept an eye out for anything else pressure plate or tripwire shaped because it _would be just his luck_ to stumble into the one room in the one library in the world to hide their books behind deadly traps.

(Who knew? They did tend to aggregate in the dank and the dark, and the argument could be made that the goblin had been worse than poison darts.)

But then Morgana gasped and he tore his eyes away from the floor long enough to take in the books, and suddenly, triggering one or more horrible deaths wasn't- well, it was still a concern, but it wasn't the most immediate concern on his mind.

No, that would be the _Magic_. 

Where the rest of the room was flossed in white, the whole of the inner bookshelf was a dark hole; books pushed into topples and steeples and with barely a few loose strings of web to drift from the black spaces between them. 

The book Morgana had picked up was one of the thickest, and entirely web free. Its covering was also embossed in the runes of the old religion, the gold somehow untarnished by age, the leather un-weathered or frayed.

It was obviously a spell book and oh god, this was so much worse than the goblin, precisely because of what it implied about Merlin, and about what Merlin had been hiding.

"Arthur, this is..."

She couldn't read it, of course, but the generous illustrations ensured she didn't have to. She opened the book to inkings of herbs and flowers, which Arthur considered pointing out weren't so different from what could be found in any standard medical text (not just Gaius's in particular, he could see how that might be implicating)- but then she flipped again. 

Astronomical alignments. Flip. Moon phases. Flip. Spell-casting forms.

That last one looked to require a very precise configuration of fingers over the subject's head, and most damningly, the man's eyes in the illustration were inlaid with gold leaf. 

He hated to think about what it meant. Neither did Morgana, but she said it anyway, because that was who she was[ii].

"This is a book of magic. You don't think, Merlin..."

She tried to laugh, but it fell limp between them and broke none of the tension.

It was a scary prospect. Even for Arthur, who knew magic itself wasn't anything to fear. Because Merlin didn't. Merlin was Uther Pendragon's son, prince of Camelot.

Uther's son had magic. Merlin loved Uther. Uther hated magic.

There was no use denying it now and Arthur... Arthur couldn't even say for certain which would win out, hate or love, if put to the test. He'd seen too much of both from the king, where either Merlin or magic was concerned.

How terrifying must that be for Merlin, not to know? 

Merlin, who always wanted his father to be proud of him. Uther's pride had always been conditional and that was expected, but his love was something held closer to his chest, a thing to be felt and not seen, its rules unspoken, unknowable, until just the right key was turned. Arthur had witnessed how a single word could open the man up to unexpected moments of tenderness, even as he wrong one could lock him down, lock ideas and people out.

_Or send them to their deaths._

How long had Merlin known? Had it really started only a week ago? Or had Arthur just been too dense to pick up on the signs until he'd caught the man in the middle of a full on breakdown?

This explained all too much. Arthur was gripped with the sudden need to tell him that everything would be all right, that he understood, because...

"What do we do? Arthur?"

Right. Morgana was still here, and she knew too.

"Lets... think about what we know. If Merlin is looking at magic books, if Merlin... has magic... then what does that mean?"

(He didn't want to think about what the dragon would think it meant.)

Merlin had to have come into his magic naturally, like Arthur. He would have had no incentive to learn it otherwise. 

Right. That had to be it. He'd come to Gaius for help just the other day, hadn't he? Because he was worried about what his dreams meant. 

Fact: Arthur had never met a sorcerer quite like himself in his life, and therefor had no real reason to assume someone else who came into their magic naturally would have started by floating items twice their size before they could walk. For all he knew, Merlin had just woken up the other day (probably from another bad dream), and boom: magic.

...Unless there was something else he was missing (which was certainly possible, it had been hard enough to get Gaius to talk) and he'd hidden this longer than Arthur ever wanted to consider, and the thought of that, of Merlin having to deal with that kind of terror as a child, was almost too horrifying to imagine. It was a terror Arthur could relate to intimately, and he hadn't had to grow up in Camelot, in Uther's own household.

Morgana, however, had no way of knowing that was even a possibility.

"But why would he learn magic? What could possibly drive him to..."

Her face crumpled, and she pressed the book closer to her heart.

"I thought he was happy. What... what didn't I see?"

Of course. Morgana wasn't so upset at the prospect of Merlin supposedly seeking out magic as to the _why_ he would take such a horrible risk in the first place, what _horrible thing_ could drive him to put himself in so much danger, and how she, his _sister_ , could have missed it.

It was a small relief that she hadn't condemned him immediately, but it mixed like oil with Arthur's guilt; guilt at not being able to ease her confusion, and maybe conscience, without putting his own secret in jeopardy.

"You weren't the only one who didn't see."

He settled for shifting the blame. Then squared his shoulders.

"Morgana, think about it. He loves you, he loves his father, and he's already heir to throne. What could he possibly have to gain by hurting anyone?"

Morgana ducked her chin.

"What if someone was threatening him?"

Arthur blinked. He hadn't expected the conversation to take that direction. But still-

"If someone was threatening the prince he could- I mean, he _is_ the prince. He has to have other options."

Morgana jolted.

"Arthur!"

She almost dropped the book.

"Oh Arthur, I never told you why I asked. It wasn't just, he was acting strange..."

She swallowed some quick breaths and Arthur took some deeper ones. She took his cue. Her shoulders heaved, and she inhaled to meet his eyes.

"There was this woman. A druid. She told me someone wanted to kill Merlin, not for the usual reasons, but, because..."

Morgan stilled.

"Because he might no longer be the prince."

*** 

Meanwhile in Kansas[iii]…

***

Merlin woke up from what felt like a very bad dream.

His cheeks were cold and wet, his throat was parched, and his eyes were dry but still blurred. Together those things had the combined effect of making him feel sick. The kind of sick he wouldn't know was real or not until Arthur threw water on him and made him eat breakfast.

_Arthur_.

He couldn't remember anything about the dream, and that was probably for the best, because the moment he thought 'Arthur' a sleep-fog cottoned over him like a smudge of red and gold. He had to push it away to come back to the room, and then it was gone.

A hand slapped for his chest through the blur. It took a few unsuccessful falls to land it there, since his limbs were asleep and sleep numbed, but he managed with persistence. He stopped when he could flop his hand over his ribs and melt his fingers a bit over the magic there, to thaw and curl around his heartbeat like a dog around a campfire glow.

_Warm_ , was the thought that had followed, the thought that stole the memory of his struggles. Merlin stilled under the warmth. Warmth like relief, so unlike the caustic storm that had once sometime ago ripped at his insides and must have discharged somewhere between the dream and waking. How, he didn't know. Unless maybe he had blown up something in his sleep again, which was a train of thought that begged the question:

Had his dream really been a dream?

< _Failed us_ >

Merlin nearly toppled out of a bed that was much smaller than expected.

The floor was equally unfamiliar at first, but then his senses cleared and absorbed the distinctly mixed scent of herb dust and things turned musty and boiled that belonged in Gaius's chambers, that clung to the fabric of Arthur's clothes- which were, on closer inspection, what Merlin had fallen on.

There was Arthur's name again, the ghost of an image replaced by something less faded. That was right. Merlin had visited this room once or twice, since it had become Arthur's.

He pulled himself up under the small light that dusted through Arthur's window, arms stiff, or his nightshirt more stiff than he remembered. He lifted his sleeve and sniffed at it, only to jerk away with wrinkled nose. Yes, the herb smell was very, _very_ strong there.

He picked at the fabric in the small space between the cabinet and the bed and the sad webby table and candle stubs. There was also a door, but for some reason, Merlin was suddenly hesitant to open it.

Then-

"Merlin, are you awake?"

Gaius? Had he been under some kind of... medical observation?

Merlin shook his head. He glanced down at his clothes again, but seeing no appealing alternative, finally settled his lost eyes on the doorknob and turned it.

He poked his head out the crack, and when his strange premonition bore no immediately ill fruit, squinted down past the shadow of the stairs and into the more open light of Gaius's chambers. _Creak_ went the steps, each like an off key punctuation to the clink of pots and the dry rustle of herbs and the strap and buckle of Gaius's medicine bag.

"You're up early," he said, when Merlin dropped the last few stairs to the bottom.

He rubbed his eyes.

"Am I?"

"Yes, I think so. After last night, I wouldn't have expected- ah, well. I already put out breakfast for you."

Gaius gestured with his free hand to a table set with a bowl of ambiguous white gruel and some even more ambiguous opaque bottles as he slipped the strap of his satchel over his shoulder. 

"Last night?"

(Merlin grasped for where the memories should be and came back with sand through his fingers. He remembered nothing about last night.)

(Had he really been that bad off? He felt fine now.)

"Eat it quickly and you might even be on time."

"Um, thank you, Gaius."

Merlin pulled out a chair and sat down. Then ran over the words again just as Gaius shuffled for the door.

"Gaius?"

"Yes?"

Gaius stopped and half turned.

"Yes, what is it?"

"On time for what? And where's Arthur?" 

Gaius gave him an odd look, full of eyebrow.

"Where he usually is at this hour, one would assume. And where you should be, very shortly."

This time, Gaius pointed at the bottles. 

"Ah, and seeing as you're at least half awake I might as well remind you: I have some business to attend to in town, so I left the king's medicine on the table, there. I'll need you to check up on him in my stead- no later than midday would probably be best. Give him the one for the pain while you're there- yes, that one- you can leave the sleeping draft with Gwen. She knows what to do with it."

Merlin was very confused, but groggy and unable to find the exact words to place his confusion before Gaius was out the door and he didn't want to shout, especially not this early in the morning.

It was a strange thing, to ask him to bring his father medicine. Was there a particular reason? While they weren't on unfriendly terms, Gaius was no Arthur, and as such generally reserved the ordering him around bit for when he was being sick, wounded, and/or incredibly stupid. And how was Gwen involved?

This really sounded like the sort of business that ought to be Arthur’s job. Merlin knew next to nothing about medicine beyond basic field first aid. He hadn't even known the king had taken ill, or aching, or whatever it was.

Merlin lifted the wooden bowl and popped the top of the scum with his tongue- then coughed, decided his sleeve probably tasted better, and wiped his tongue on that instead.

A bit more awake now, he pushed his 'breakfast' away and made up his mind to head straight to his room. If he was lucky, he'd find Arthur already waiting there and he could help him get into some proper clothes, if not explain what was going on.

***

"Merlin," Arthur said, back propped against Merlin's pillows and Merlin's blankets propped over his knees,

"I assume there is a perfectly good reason you've decided to wake me up in your nightclothes."

Truthfully, it had looked like Arthur had already been awake when he came in, but for some reason he had waited until Merlin was through the door to actually sit up.

"I didn't stay the night, if that's what you're worrying," Merlin said.

The joke fell off his lips while his mind processed Arthur in his bed and decided what had been a confusing morning had probably, after all, been part of a confusing dream: the waking up in Arthur's room, the bossy Gaius, the medicine he was expected to know something about. Treating his father. No doubt he would fail spectacularly at that later. Maybe that was where the dream would go bad.

Funny, he'd never dreamt of failing as a servant before. Perhaps he was feeling sympathetic.

Not that he was complaining. On balance, he'd rather be a servant any day than see himself burnt at the stake or some such. Though Arthur could have been watching him burn right then. That was definitely a burning glare.

"I should have you flogged for even making the insinuation."

It was hard not to insinuate when he hadn't even bothered to wear a nightshirt and Merlin honestly wasn't keen to pull back the covers to see if the pattern held. But apparently that was his job here. His mind sure was a strange thing.

"Well, I guess it's good a thing mornings put you in such a forgiving mood, then," he said.

Merlin ripped the blankets off like a tourniquet crusted over a possibly festered battle wound- best to get it done with quickly.

Arthur hissed from the cold.

"Believe me, stocks are still an option. Clothes Merlin!"

"Clothes? Oh right, clothes!"

Yes, Arthur did usually lay those out first, didn't he? To the wardrobe then.

"I swear you're half asleep again. Or half drunk, more like," Arthur said into his hands.

Arthur rolled to his feet. He raised arms and ducked head just in time for Merlin to return with a lump of clothes. Merlin fumbled to find the right holes to pull him through, and then fumbled some more with the laces. 

It wasn't that Merlin couldn't dress himself when he needed to- he wasn't that helpless- but dressing someone else was a surprisingly different experience. He wondered if it was just a dream thing, or if it was actually supposed to be this difficult.

< _No dream_ >

Merlin clutched his head sharply.

"Merlin?"

' _Not now.'_

Through the fading pain, Merlin noted the genuine worry that poked through Arthur's hard exterior like two blue holes of light.

"Fine, fine. Just fine. Sire," he tried.

That had the effect of narrowing his eyes, so Merlin looked away, gave Arthur's sleeve one last tug, and ran for his vest. Which he had also forgot to lie out in advance.

< _Wrong door_ >

Somehow, he didn't think they were talking about the wardrobe.

< _Wrong door wrong door wrong wrong WRONG_ >

The voices were persistent, but surprisingly weak. He let the pulse of magic rush in his ears until they were drowned out with a sound like a pop and a break that rang out into blessed silence. Merlin wasn’t sure what he just did, but he wasn’t about to question it. He sagged just a little with the vest he draped over Arthur's shoulders.

' _Yes, yes, okay, not a dream, got it_ ,' he thought to nobody in particular- certainly not the voices.

Though he hated to admit it, they had reminded him of one useful thing, at least; it was probably best to play along just until he figured out what was going on. He knew how his father got about people tangled in incidents that even vaguely resembled magic and, considering the circumstances, he really didn't fancy losing his head.

***

As soon as Arthur was fully dressed he ordered Merlin to run off and do the same so as to look presentable while he waited on him in council, which was apparently a thing Arthur had decided he should do.

Arthur had given him a strange look when he'd rushed back, fully clothed, and gestured vaguely enough at his neck that it took Merlin a few tries to catch where he was indicating.

"What, is there something on my tunic?"

Which was when Merlin learned he'd apparently forgotten something called a 'neckerchief', and that, for some indiscernible reason, this troubled Arthur enough that even though he tried to call it an improvement, he couldn't quite get his voice to sound like he meant it.

***

With Uther absent, Arthur sat at the head of the table, and it became clear almost immediately that he had assumed more than just his father's seat by his (sometimes reluctant) 'yes's' and 'no's' and the conspicuous lack of 'let's wait to hear what the king has to say about this...'

Leon sat to one side of Arthur, and uncle Agravaine on the other. This was surprising for a number of reasons. 

Merlin had only ever seen Agravaine once or twice on special occasions, and even then there had been a stale and rotten tension in the air between him and his father, one Merlin had never identified the source of. Yet here he was, having established himself on the council, as the apparent prince of Camelot's right hand advisor no less. Merlin feared that did not bode well for his father's health. In fact, he feared that it _hadn't_ boded well, past tense.

From behind Arthur, Merlin tried not to itch at his clothes, and he wondered: could Agravaine be the cause of the king's un-wellness? This whole servant-Merlin charade, the voices, everything? Could he actually be a sorcerer? 

That might explain some of his resentment for his father, if nothing else. Given Merlin's... situation, he might be the only one not affected by whatever mind altering magic he had up his sleeve. In which case hypothetical-sorcerer-Agravaine might need someone else to play the role of puppet prince. 

There were still a number of things about that plan that didn't make a lot of sense (such as why he'd single out Arthur, or why he couldn’t just make himself king), but it still felt better to suspect somebody, anybody, just to have something to go on. Merlin firmly resolved right then and there to keep an eye on Agravaine. Ironically, what made him realize he'd tuned out the man for the near length of time it took him to reach that conclusion had nothing to do with Agravaine at all, but rather everything to do with another familiar name:

"...Morgana, though they haven't reported any other sign of either her or Morgause, I'm afraid. Only mere rumors."

Merlin almost tripped- a fairly impressive feat, considering he hadn't been moving. Arthur paid no mind.

"Have sir Geraint lead up a patrol with sir Caridoc and sir Vidor to survey the area[iv]," said Arthur.

"Even if it's only a rumor, I hardly need to remind you of the threat they pose to Camelot."

"Right away, sire," Agravaine bowed.

Agravaine's face was soft and doughy and dripped with concern and regret- all proper things and all only half-baked. Arthur's was hard in contrast. Neither mattered, because the meaning of the words themselves had stripped all that away, until all that was left was dust and bones and-

_Morgana_. 

'On the run' had been implied. _Threat_ had been stated.

They. They were a threat, plural. This Morgause character hadn’t simply kidnapped Morgana. _They_ were working together. But towards what end? 

_A threat to Camelot._

By the time he had untangled that much Merlin's almost-theory had almost unraveled. This went beyond mind manipulating magic (it had to) and it went beyond sense. 

Servant Merlin. Prince Arthur. Threat Morgana. There was no way so many impossible things could happen on their own, and yet no sane plan could possibly be this complicated.

Maybe the voices were wrong. Or maybe this was a dream, but not his. Maybe it was the dream of some sadistic deity that had watched his life from afar and then, on a whim, decided it should have gone a slightly different way- like a different telling of the same story. And why not? Myth often contradicted itself and sometimes so too did the history books. Maybe those weren't mistakes after all. Maybe the world had just been remade. 

It wasn't an encouraging thought.

***

A story. He might not have liked his latest idea much, but it did seem helpful, in practice, to think of this as a story.

In this story, Prince Arthur loved his father, king Uther, who was ill enough that Arthur had been made regent. Arthur was not entirely happy with this state of affairs. He was reluctant to take on his responsibilities, almost as if doing so meant admitting his father wasn't capable, which is what his advisors were quite clearly too polite to say was what they believed. 

Merlin wasn't sure Agravaine was the villain of this story, or if that was Morgana, or this Morgause. He thought it would probably be the best if it were Morgause, the unknown entity, the true invader in this tale. Anyone but Morgana really. Whoever thought Morgana could be a danger to her own people clearly didn't know her at all. She had to be manipulating her, this foreign entity.

Maybe she was the one writing this story, and that was why she believed she could.

***

After the council meeting came training. 

There were new knights on the training field, or at least knights Merlin didn't recognize, not counting Leon, and… wait, was that _Lancelot_ next to that big muscly fellow?

Something clicked.

Oh, so Uther had been bad off for a _while_ then. He had to have been, for Prince Arthur to get away with knighting a commoner- possibly commoners, plural.

Merlin couldn't help but admire prince Arthur's initiative, especially since if it were him, taking advantage of his father's indisposed state would have sat a little like a betrayal. That might have bothered Merlin more if it wasn't at least good evidence that Arthur was listening to his own heart as much as to Agravaine or anyone else.

Merlin knew there had to be a story behind them, these knights, who he did not recognize save for Leon and Lancelot- a story within a story. There was something closer than distant respect in their eyes when Arthur strode onto the field with Merlin in tow, though of course Lancelot immediately stopped talking and straightened in a very respectful way anyway. Merlin had only trained the man for a short period of time and he still wouldn't have expected any less.

The big man stood up next to Lancelot, and Leon stood like he had a proper pole in his back, and the other two knights- there were five in total- one with long hair and one with a very white smile, stood wide legged and easy in the prince's presence.

The men were to pair up to spar. To fix the odd number Arthur ended up filling in as the opponent to the longhaired knight, whose casual looseness, it turned out, in no way translated to carelessness. It was a surprisingly even match between the two. His technique was highly adaptive and possibly straddled the line between several different styles, and before Merlin had consciously realized it he had already begun to take mental notes. 

Somewhere from inside the flash and gleam of steel, Arthur must have caught his stare, because he raised a hand for a halt. Longhair flicked his hair back in time with his sword, and followed Arthur’s line of sight.

"Merlin, seeing as you're just standing around, being as useful as ever, how would _you_ feel about giving it a go?"

Merlin blinked, then pointed at himself.

"Me?"

He hardly thought there'd be much point in practicing against a servant- unless, oh, and this was entirely possible in this flipped up narrative, prince Arthur had been the one to secretly train servant _Merlin_ to become a knight. 

_'Except'_ , he thought, with another squint across the field at Lancelot, ' _that doesn't make sense at all.'_

If that were true, if Arthur was training Merlin, if Arthur was already knighting commoners, then shouldn't Merlin also already be a knight? Was he really that hopeless with a sword, or- 

There was something tucked in at the edges of Prince Arthur's smile, a familiar thing that Arthur's face made so unfamiliar that it took Merlin some time to recognize it for what it truly was: _condescension_. 

'Prince Arthur' hadn't tried to teach him at all, had he?

Instead, it had probably gone something like this:

_'Once upon a time, prince Arthur was a prat... and decided that the best way Merlin could serve him was as a training dummy.'_

_'The end.'_

Who would have thought? 

Well, prince or not, Merlin wasn't going to just stand and take abuse to soothe his ego, even if his smirk told him that was exactly what 'prince Arthur' expected 'servant Merlin' to do.

Arthur turned the sword hilt-up and Merlin grasped it. His hands curled around the oh-so-familiar shape, though he didn't bother to slide them apart or make a point to bend his legs into a proper stance- not until the longhaired man met his eyes and lunged.

It looked like a forward overhead strike, but Merlin saw his leg come up, so it was more likely a bluff to cover a kick. He thought he saw his plan. Perhaps servant Merlin would have tried to block, played winded when the 'real' blow landed and fallen down, and prince Arthur would have been satisfied. 

Instead, Merlin bluffed his bluff. He raised his sword diagonally as if to block head-on, but sidestepped out of the way last second. The long-hared knight's thrown leg unbalanced him for hardly as long before he caught himself, but Merlin seized the moment.

Merlin went for that leg, and the man barely jerked into a block. Their swords rose together in a brief lock that Merlin broke with a twist under his hilt and a turn over the longhaired knight's blade. With the same momentum, and before the knight had recovered from his shock, he trapped his sword under his armpit while it was down and turned the man's wrist so that his sword fell loose and went with Merlin when Merlin stepped back.

Merlin became aware, as his heart slowed and his focus expanded, that the other knights had stopped to stare.

He leveled his first sword at the man's chest and drew the other back at the ready. Longhair raised his empty hands.

"Merlin, _Merlin_ , I yield."

The element of surprise had ensured it was over quickly. Probably for the best under the circumstances, though he wouldn't pass up the chance to engage the man in a fair fight.

Longhair accepted his sword with a slap to his back.

"That was a good play, mate. I barely saw you coming. Well done."

Merlin strode around to Arthur and presented him his own sword in upturned palms. 

Arthur's arms stayed at his sides. It looked like he feared the blade might come to life and bite him if he blinked- and that that would still somehow offend his sense of reality less then what had just happened. As if it was the sword's fault for doing what a sword was actually supposed to do in Merlin's hands.

Merlin rolled his eyes.

"Careful- Stare a little closer and you just might poke an eye out."

That seemed to wake Arthur up a bit. He raised his head, and he took the sword back. Slowly, he slid it into its sheath without really looking at it, or away from-

"Merlin."

"Yes, sire?"

"I believe the stables need mucking out. See to it."

Merlin frowned, and wondered if in this story stable hands existed, or if he was just being punished[v].

Though now that he really thought about it, it was about noon and shoveling dung almost sounded like an appealing alternative to what he just remembered he was supposed to be doing.

"Actually, sire, about that..."

***

Right. So this was where the dream went bad. Real or not, Merlin had seen it coming.

Gwen was there when he knocked on the door and let himself in, a bottle for pain relief in one hand, and one for sleep in the other. At first glance Merlin thought maybe Uther was being tended to in bed, but he wasn't. Gwen was just keeping herself occupied with his linens.

It was oddly surreal to see her in his father's room, still a servant (though not to Morgana), softness still on her brow and tightness in her folds, when Arthur was prince and regent and a bit of a bully, and Morgana was 'a threat'. Merlin had almost expected Gwen to be evil, or a princess, and was guilty to admit that had been an easier thing to worry about than anything to do with his sister, or his father, who hadn't so much as raised his head when he entered his chambers.

Merlin moved to the window and Gwen silently put down her folding. She drifted from around the bed and past the curtained columns until there was only a skirt of space between them.

Uther looked like he'd aged years since Merlin had seen him last. His clothes had grown too large, his hair too grey or too long, and he sank into everything. His hands hung stiff out their cuffs and his head drooped at an angle that couldn't have been comfortable against the hard, impractically carved wood of his favorite chair.

Merlin swallowed, throat sour. He primed himself to channel Gaius. His unshakeable calm, his stern care- not quite detached, but ever practical. He could do this. He had pretended in front of his father before, and right now he wasn't even here, not really. He could pretend in front of Gwen too.

He knew that half of what physicians did was ask questions anyway, so he started with one of Gaius's favorites.

"Has there been any change?"

"Nothing. He's the same as always."

She wrung her hands.

"I mean, occasionally he'll cry out when I don't expect it, and sometimes he'll mumble a few words, but... I don't think he knows what he's saying."

Merlin waved a hand in front of Uther's eyes. They were grey like his hair, a grey that followed nothing, that gave nothing back but fractured windowpane light. 

"What are you doing?" 

"Just- let me try. Please."

He snapped two fingers beside his ear.

"...Uther? Your majesty?"

"Merlin."

(He couldn't say father.)

(Illogically, he wanted too anyway. He wanted to lean just close enough to whisper it.)

(It hadn't occurred to Merlin until he saw him, but wouldn't it be a cruel punishment if his father was still in there, somewhere, and remembered everything while all the while the world went mad around him?)

"Merlin, I don't think he can... Arthur's tried."

Merlin curled his fingers around the bare edges of a tremble wanted to rattle free of his ribcage. Tried to smooth them out against his legs. Gwen noticed the movement but misinterpreted it.

"I know... you're worried about Arthur. But you're doing fine. You and Gaius are doing are doing wonderful, you're doing all you can do. No one expects you to... to just wave a hand or wand and make everything better. Not even Arthur, even if he doesn't always act like it."

_Oh, the irony._

Yes, using his magic to heal Uther's mind had occurred to him. 

Not too long ago, Merlin's dreams had lead him to a secret room in the library, and not some days ago, he'd come back to open what had looked like a spell book to read no more than a few lines, which had turned into pages though in practice what he had absorbed between fragments of paranoia hadn't been much more comprehensive. He had been overly desperate for a quick fix at the time; for anything that could spring just a tiny, controlled leak in his pent up magic so that he could go back to pretending like he wasn't a dam about to burst.

The problem was that when he had tried something as simple as lighting a candle, it had exploded into scalding hot wax, which just now inspired images of his father's head popping like a grape skin.

It was all Merlin could do to uncork the cap and hold the bottle steady while Gwen held the king's nose and tipped back his head. Potent smelling gunk, sticky and brown, dripped down his throat. Or clogged down it. Merlin feared he would choke and kept his eyes on the lines of his throat muscles, which were disturbingly inert, but were still easier to look at than those eyes.

There was a squeeze, and Gwen's presence became just another weight on his shoulder. Merlin had to bite down on the sudden urge to ask her about Morgana, that other horrible thing that he should already know about.

He found he didn't care what the voices said. He wanted this to be a dream. And he wanted to wake up.

* * *

[i] Did you know the concept of patient confidentiality (and the Hippocratic oath) dates back to ancient Greece? Thanks for nothing Wikipedia.

Also:

"There is a special bond between a doctor and his patient. One might almost say a bond of sacred confidentiality."

-Gaius, S5 ep. 10.

Thank you cannon.

[ii] When Morgana was afraid her first instinct was to charge straight ahead. That was something she and Arthur had in common, but Morgana- Morgana could free fall from a cliff and wouldn't even close her eyes before she hit the ground. It wouldn't even occur to her. Arthur wondered if it wasn't always for the best. 

[iii] This is a reference to the ‘Wizard of Oz’. Kansas = cannon Camelot. There, the joke has been explained.

[iv] Pulled knight names from a list on Merlin wiki of knights that weren't dead.

[v] To be fair, high-ranking servants regularly emptied royal chamber pots, and the royal horses were of such well-bred stock they probably had dung at least as noble as the people.


	4. Interlude: Arthur of Ealdor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past bleeds into the present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some backstory.

"He killed a child. It wasn't his first. This just so happened to be one I knew."

There was an empty silence in Merlin's room. A ruffled nest of blankets lay too still and too cold. Arthur had yet to touch it. He wasn't sure he wanted to be the one to wash the blood out.

"Do you think I'm wrong, not to hate him?"

***

The older boy tossed the stick to his friend and high over Arthur’s hands, batting and useless as a cub's. 

They laughed at him.

"What's wrong? I thought you wanted to play? You'll never make a knight at this rate!"

Past the heat of his eyes, past the blur, the shape of Will stalked onto the path and along the edge of the scene. His gaze was a little too studiously trained at the tree line to be casual. Neither of the larger smears seemed to notice, though, so Arthur forced his eyes away and tried to refocus on his quarry. He jumped again. 

This time, the stick-catcher caught it under his legs and tripped him into the mud. Arthur felt his knee stab into a sharp rock and go slimy-numb. He bit down hard on his lip and limped up again. Gashed. Wet. Shaking. He rubbed at his face and smeared dirt.

For some reason, they also found this funny.

"Like they'd ever let a peasant be a knight. Let alone a filthy _bastard_."

The stick was broke in two and the halves scattered on the ground. 

That was when Will lunged.

He was small but clung to the boy's back by fingers and nails and made him fall into a stagger. His friend scrambled to pull Will off, and in the confusion, Arthur picked up one jagged piece of wood and splintered it against the leg of the boy who broke it.

He got punched in the face after that. Arthur remembered it clearly, because it was also the day he lost his first tooth.

***

No one ever had terribly high expectations for Arthur. His mother, for all she loved him, would have been satisfied if he could avoid getting himself killed.

Arthur found himself wanting something more to live up to. He was restless. 

***

It was winter so they had to cook inside. The hearth filled the cottage with warmth and smoke and a smell of mushed barley and onion that seemed to be in competition with the cold brickwork that drained it away. 

Arthur sat close to the hearth and at the table, feet dangled inches above a patch of cold earth floor where the straw was too scattered to warm it. 

Earlier, his mother had helped to midwife a healthy baby girl. Even now he could hear her cheeks stretch wide when she talked about it. Her rough hands were still proud as she rolled them and dried herbs over the pot and fire like that girl's family wasn't supposed to want to see him burn.

Sometimes, villages built their own pyres. That was what Mother had told him. And that was why he didn't understand. 

"Why do you care?"

Maybe it was the gap in his teeth. Or maybe it was what had put it there, but he couldn't stop the words from spilling out. 

Mother paused a little in her rolling. Then she brushed off her hands and unhooked the pot. She didn't speak until she bent to place a bowl in front of Arthur.

"These people have helped us a great deal," she said.

Arthur swallowed and lowered his sight to the bowl of pottage, like he'd already tasted something bitter.

"You mean we need them, because we're not strong enough to live on our own, where nobody could ever hurt us. Will says he's going to be so strong he can live just like that one day. Someday, I'm going to be that strong too."

"Arthur."

He couldn't see her though he imagined he could see himself, spoon gripped like a weapon and back coiled tight, and he hadn't needed to lift his head to know the face that looked down at him was kind. He'd seen it before. He'd seen it every day.

Then there was a hand, mother soft in the way it moved across his bangs and behind his ear even under its calloused edges. 

"Relying on other people doesn't have to be a weakness," she said.

_Bang!_

"But they all hate me!"

" _Arthur_!"

Hunith drew back stern but Arthur shook his fist and spoon at her anyway.

"You always say I can never tell anyone about all the things I can do! All the good things I do like keep us warm in the winter and make the bad food good again because they'll hurt me! They already hurt me and they don't even know! All I can do is act weak and let them do whatever they want and- and they don't even know-"

His eyes were hot. They stung. It must have been the smoke.

"Why can't it just be us? It could be just you and me and Will, it could just be _good_ people, all hid away and..."

"The druids have tried that," she said.

"Then-"

Hunith bent down in front of him again.

"Uther has found them before. Cenred has found them before. You can't always escape by running from your problems. Sometimes, the best place you can be is where you're needed most."

" _I_ need you."

Hunith was able to press his hands open and limp onto her palms. The spoon was placed back on the table, straightened and neat.

"You have me. But these people need me too. I have some healing, and that's why they need me. I love you, but that doesn't mean I have to hate everyone or anyone else."

"Even the king of Camelot?"

"Even him. Especially him. You see, the king of Camelot lives very, very far away. He'd never know the difference if I hated him or not. And if I did? Who would it hurt? Only myself and you."

"But I don't want to be weak..."

She shook her head and squeezed his hand closer.

"You're not weak. You have a good heart, Arthur. You could hurt anyone much worse than they hurt you but you don't, and I think that makes you very strong. And don't say everyone hates you, it's not true. No one knows you well enough to hate you. Not even those boys who sometimes say mean things."

"I..."

Arthur could feel himself go lax, empty, lost.

"I don't understand."

Then why? What was the point of any of it?

She smiled in a way that somehow didn't lift any of the heaviness from her eyes, the way that grownups sometimes smiled. She kissed his forehead. 

"Maybe not now. But someday, hopefully."

***

Will never told him that being a knight meant more than just being strong for yourself-or even just yourself and your friends. It took Arthur a while to come to his own conclusions.

The other thing Arthur concluded was that it was easier to be hated if you were careful about whose opinions you cared about and only respected people who actually deserved it.

' _I can see how much he cares about you_ ,' his mother would say, years later. 

The trick, he decided, was learning which voices were worth listening to.

And he trusted her voice more than he trusted the dragon's. 

***

“Sometimes I think I’m weak," Merlin said.

His hands knotted on his lap and his eyes reflected the fire. He hadn't moved in a while.

“For still caring about him, I mean. Sometimes I don’t think I should. That he doesn’t deserve it. Other times, I think that I’m the one who doesn’t; that I’ll never be able to live up to expectations. But then I remember how much he still cares despite how much I've disappointed him, and I wonder if we’re really not that different after all."

“You're not weak Merlin.”

Of all the ridiculous things Merlin said things like this were the worst.

“Morgana never hesitated," Merlin said, head cocked like a dare. 

"Morgana didn't exactly disagree with him publicly either," said Arthur, hunched over the fire. He gave it an agitated poke that startled loose a burst of embers.

Arthur had been there to bear witness to Morgana's commendable composure that supper (not that he counted). Her calculated appeals to emotion, made bluntly but with all the edge of innocence hadn't worked, of course- it never did when magic was involved- but neither would have outright anger. Uther had a dangerous habit of taking anger as a challenge to his power.

Morgana understood that and Arthur had assumed Merlin did too. Why else would he bypass the king entirely and hide the druid boy in his chambers, all the while pretending to keep up the search?

“Do you really think yelling at him would have helped?”

“I wouldn’t have yelled,” Merlin said, and lowered his head to black scruff.

"It's just... she’s always been able to confront things head on without tripping up or crossing some invisible line. She knows her own convictions but she’s not blinded by them. And she's always been strong, even when it's not what's expected of her. Where does that leave me?”

"Not on your own, for starters." 

Arthur threw the twig into the fire harder than necessary. 

"Try not to forget, Merlin. We’re all supposed to be on the same side here."

Morgana hadn't come to Merlin's room to blame him, after all- she knew better than that. No, she'd come to plan.

They'd all had their parts to play and even if everything had gone wrong, there was part of Arthur that was relieved (and just a little guilty for being relieved) that there was no way Merlin could possibly justify taking all the blame. Though if he tried any harder Arthur might just hit him, royal idiot or not.

Merlin aways did this, he always tried to take the weight of the world onto his shoulders and it was always made the worse because Arthur knew that if anyone deserved the blame for letting it fall it was him. Arthur always tried his best, but the fact remained he had let too many people die already to keep his secret. He hated himself a little for it, but the voices remained:

Gaius. Even his mother.

'Holding back isn't a weakness.'

'Patience is a virtue.'

If only things were so simple.

Sometimes, the <trust<love>> respect was enough to drown out all else and he could honestly convince himself he was worth it, or the good he did outweighed the bad and was. Other times, he felt terribly naive for thinking there was room for any virtue in a life like his. Perhaps his own bitter feelings coloured his next words a little too much.

"Remember that one time you tried to reason with your father and you almost got me killed?"

Merlin flinched.

"I do tend to make things worse, don't I?"

Arthur had to suppress a groan. That wasn't it at all.

"No, you're father's just-"

Merlin's wide open guilt flickered into harsh shadows that cast warning over his features.

“Careful.”

"...A man people weaker than you would feel justified in hating."

Merlin snorted but didn't laugh.

The silence stretched. The fire snapped.

"I suppose it's all a matter of perspective,” he said, at last.

***

"Sometimes, I imagine that if I could find the right words, could put them in just the right order, I could get him to understand."

_'He shouldn't need you to be perfect to want to_ try _to understand you,'_ Arthur thought.

Arthur struggled to understand Merlin everyday and never seemed to draw any closer, but he tried anyway. He... <believed in <cared about>> respected him. And so he thought he deserved at least that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally going to be part of the next chapter, but it stands better on it's own. More plot progression next chapter guaranteed.


	5. Dragon's Tales

Reading was a very useful skill, and one Merlin had never truly appreciated until he'd moved to Camelot. There had never been much cause to read in Ealdor, though Merlin's mother had still insisted it was important and labored to teach him what she knew with nothing but stick and dirt, charcoal and stone. 

Sometimes, he suspected she'd always known he'd have to leave someday. That he'd end up in Camelot with Gaius, or at least leave Ealdor, and that she'd wanted to give him every advantage she could. 

She had always saved Gaius's letters, and when he was young, Merlin would sometimes practice his reading on them- carefully, and under his mother's hand, because each sheaf of parchment was also the skin of an animal and a precious thing, from both a purely practical and sentimental standpoint. Those letters had, after all, been Merlin's first real glimpse of his mentor and great uncle. 

In a way Merlin had learned to write from Gaius's hand as much as his mother's, and since he'd never seen a real book until he'd entered the same man's workroom, the two images had become intertwined in his mind. It helped that under all the herbs Gaius smelled like books, leathered and musty. Even now losing himself in pages was the easiest way to forget he wasn't home.

In fact he found himself thinking more and more of that most important book he lacked; that book that Gaius had given him which had absorbed Merlin like nothing else in his life; the way the most interesting page always seemed to stick to his fingers, and how the whispered language of magic melted into his brain and into words he knew and then from his lips. It had felt less like understanding something than having finally been understood. For all Gaius outwardly urged him to be careful, there had also been a real underlying sense of pride and astonishment at how quickly he'd burned through concepts that were intuitive to him but had most likely taken the physician many years to master (assuming he ever had).

It probably set his expectations for everything else rather too high at the beginning, because when Gaius had finally sat Merlin down to walk him through his anatomy collection it had only made his tongue twist and his eyes go soft and blurred. The cramped and wordy blocks of Latin were nothing like the flowing cadence of the old religion, even if they had been transcribed in the same letters. Whittling through each page had taken the patience of a woodsman with an axe, and if he was being honest, patience had never been one of Merlin's virtues. (How well he put up with Arthur was probably a bit impressive considering, though at least when he was on his chores his mind could wander.)

Point being, it had taken Merlin real time and effort to adjust to reading real, scholarly type books, just as it had also taken time to learn how to write legibly with a pen without bleeding out all over Arthur's expensive parchment- back when he'd been roped into writing his first speech. Merlin would have liked to blame that particular incident on the prince taking note of his aforementioned large vocabulary, but more likely, it was because Merlin had bet Arthur that he knew more about plow sharing than he did, and from there, the argument devolved as arguments were want to do when Arthur had the very unfair advantage of being prince.

All the same, Merlin was very grateful now that he'd gotten used to all those things- the reading, the writing, and even the speeches, which had forced him to pay special attention to Arthur's formal dictation. A peasant he may be, but if a peasant had to pretend to be royalty, he was in a better position to do so than the average servant. 

And as pressing as the rest of his situation might be, he couldn't help but appreciate the books in the Camelot library. Even the musty and dusty ones were things of beauty- many lushly illuminated in what Gaius had said was the tradition of Rome. Though it wasn't anything Merlin couldn't replicate with magic, it was hard not to appreciate the craftsmanship involved and that some of the exotic inks alone probably cost more than he made in a year.  
  
The first day he'd visited Geoffrey had only looked up briefly from his own transcriptions, from which Merlin concluded that, in his own mind, seeing 'Prince Merlin' there wasn't a particularly surprising sight. At the time Merlin had still considered it likely that everyone he knew was under an enchantment, and so had found himself wondering if everyone shared a consistent idea of what a princely Merlin would be like, or if the false memories were filtered through their own perception. Because it made sense that Geoffrey would want to imagine a bookly prince, or even wish that Merlin were book-lier than he was. 

(Sometimes Merlin got the very distinct impression that Geoffrey was a bit put out when he asked him and his books a question and then ran off mid-sentence to take care of whatever Arthur-threatening problem needed dealing with that day.)

While the best books were still probably in Gaius's possession, Merlin had caught some promising looking titles in what he'd dubbed 'the goblin room', so that had been his top priority. Second was genealogy- any records to help him determine how deep the illusion of 'prince Merlin' went. Third was anything to do with proper sword technique, because he hadn't known how long things would be stuck this way and he wasn't optimistic enough to imagine he'd be able to dodge training with the knights forever.  
  
(Later, his mind would drift back to his mother, and wonder if in this world, Arthur had been Hunith's son, and if she had taught him how to read. He wondered how that worked, and if them being so interchangeable had something to do with them both having been born of magic, in a way.)  
  
The closest thing he found to anything properly _magical_ had been picked out of bestiaries and a few compendiums on questionable herbs, neither of which proved particularly helpful. He skimmed them anyway. It only took a brief thought of the incident with the unicorn to remember that going around poking magical creatures with sticks was a very bad idea that could sometimes produce unexpected, potentially kingdom-ending results, and well. This _was_ Camelot. There were plenty of pointy sticks to go around and more than enough will to use them.

If nothing else bestiaries did at least, as a general rule, contain helpful illustrations. Which was always a draw when a good number of the available books weren't even written in the local tongue- though Merlin had managed to find at least one historical-looking text written in a more accessible Latin he had picked up over the course of his studies with Gaius. 

(Looking back, perhaps the accessible part wasn't entirely incidental, seeing as it turned out to be something of a propaganda piece.)

He opened it to the middle. 

_"...such as it was that when night was set upon them the treason of her_  
_Words were revealed:_  
_Not as insult but curse,_  
_Spoken by that most detestable slave of magick;_  
_What we call a witch._  
_That winter was long suffered in Camelot's Halls,_  
_And laid heavier still upon the queen's chamber bed._  
_Such was her suffering:_  
_That it was as if every plague of the season had beset upon her,_  
_So that she withered even with the death of the spring, and all hue of_  
_Summer was stole from her flesh and golden hair..."_  
  
Merlin stopped- flipped back a few pages, but caught no mention of Nimueh's name in particular. Still, it was easy enough to fill in the blanks. Never before had he seen what was, judging from context, the former court sorceress mentioned in a book, even so obliquely. He flipped back to where he'd left his finger as a marker, and skimmed past repeated assurances that the queen's affliction, though suitably horrifying, never tarnished her spirit or pure and goddess-like beauty.

_"...I implore to you here (beloved reader) on the behalf of all mortal men to Consider:  
What Earthly torture would not be too kind for a witch that held such spite to her heart,  
That she would not hesitate to wither the heart of Camelot herself  
To rival its own blackened shape?'  
I would see not this rot, that the witch calls magic, further seeded in the same act as punishing,'  
Quoth he, the king.  
'For even now its roots make slavish husks of those most conniving souls  
Who as slaves hath come unto me and in its name (not the king's)  
Hath petitioned for more than their station should allow:  
By means of vows now held in contention  
And since interpreted to make the greatest perversities of nature;  
A thing also taken for granted when these vows were made.  
Under such consideration, if it is put to me, a mortal king,  
To choose only between mortal mercies,  
I should then choose the kindest of mercies  
To be that which might cleanse the soul and burn down evil to its root:  
And say let the pyre be lit.'_

_So ruled he who always strove to justice,  
The high king of all Camelot,  
Uther Pendragon."_

***

"Just to be clear," said Merlin,  
  
"I'm meant to bring about some end of the world."  
  
Kilgharrah lay crouched low on his belly, his forelegs tucked under him, long neck ducked to meet the eyes of the much smaller Merlin. There seemed to be an undercurrent of vague amusement to this Kilgharrah, which was always unsettling, but as long as he didn’t fly off laughing before he answered his questions Merlin wasn't complaining.

...Not that Merlin had really had that problem since he'd become a dragonlord. Even though they were technically strangers, this Kilgharrah had still been able to sense whatever made Merlin a dragonlord the moment they met. Granted, his roaring to the sky had probably been a bit of a give away, but that wasn't the end of it. For all they should be strangers there was still a sense of _kinship_ between Merlin and this other dragon. Because he was a dragon and even in another world, a dragon was still a dragon, Merlin supposed. Even if this dragon was technically only the second dragon he'd ever met, while also being the first, because his life was confusing.

That wasn't to say Merlin trusted him, but the point was that this Kilgharrah knew he was a dragonlord and knew that Merlin could order him to tell him the truth if it really came down to it. Merlin thought though that if this dragon were even a little like his own Kilgharrah then he would respect that he hadn't. There were few things he was certain of in this strange place, but something he had noticed was that for all Arthur was different, for all his circumstances had changed and all that the pomp and formality had been stripped away, there was still something undeniably _Arthur_ about him. Maybe he could extend that to Kilgharrah... For all the good that did when he'd never figured out his own Kilgarah in the first place. 

Even so. Merlin would like to choose to believethat this Kilgharrah would be less likely to try to twist whatever truths he knew if he spoke them willingly.

And while Kilgharrah might profess to know nothing of other worlds, his knowledge of this one was one resource Merlin couldn't afford to ignore.

Presently, the dragon's impressively flexible brow shifted under the ridge of his scales and his tail curled. Merlin chose to read both these signs as 'relaxed', and on a more intuitive level thought he sensed again that hint of amusement before he received his answer.

"Either you, or _you,_ as it stands _._ The other Merlin was simply meant to open a gateway, to allow the passage of some evil- into the world, or into himself- or so it was thought. If Arthur had listened to me he could have prevented it."

Here the amusement stopped. Kilgharrah's 'lips' (for lack of a better word) stretched a little thinner and wider over his words and sharp teeth, and his eyes narrowed as if to focus on some distant point. It was a subtle thing, by standards of dragon annoyance, but it was visible to Merlin who’d grown used enough to that annoyance being directed at him.

"After which point Morgana would be free to ascend to the throne."

"And why do we want that again?"  
  
It was still more than a little surreal to be talking to 'Kilgharrah' about this.  
  
"It is she who will unite the lands of Albion as high queen, and bridge the divide between those with magic, and those without. Through understanding, and through kindness."  
  
He said it like it was so simple. Like she was Arthur or something. But his Arthur had been born of magic, as it turned out. What exactly made this Morgana so special? A kind heart?  
  
His Morgana had had a kind heart, once. It hadn't been enough.   
  
It was like the dragon read his thoughts.  
  
"If that isn't enough for you, she also happens to be the only true heir of Uther and Ygraine."  
  
His words brought Merlin back to the genealogical records he had perused.  
  
"The queen was descended from a bloodline with a deep connection to Albion's magic, and the union between Uther and Ygraine a very meaningful one. Their unexpected love and Morgana's birth marked the end of a war, and the beginning of many vows and blessings for a greater future. There is a power in that- though Uther broke many of these vows when Nimueh turned on him and cursed Ygraine to live the rest of her days in great pain and unable to produce an heir."  
  
Merlin's nose wrinkled, and he tried to rub some sense into his numb head.  
  
"But why... I mean, in my Camelot, Ygraine died because of Arthur's birth. Because Uther asked Nimueh to help Ygraine conceive. With magic."  
  
"If you would let me continue," said the dragon, "After Uther freed Camelot from the invaders that came before him, he set out to reclaim pieces of land lost to the Saxons- many of which had originally belonged to Mercia or Essetir, and were returned in exchange for peace. However, those territories included land which had previously been promised to Nimueh, the then court sorceress."  
  
"I didn't find anything like that in the history books."

The dragon bobbed his head in a way Merlin had come to associate with minor condescension. 

"I wouldn't expect you to. It is my understanding that Uther had everything with her name on it burned. Dragons have an affinity for fire and magic, and I could feel a pyre of both above my prison. Though it was, of course, a symbolic pyre. Nimueh herself had long since departed."  
  
"But what about me? What about this world's Merlin? If Ygraine still couldn't conceive, and Uther didn't ask Nimueh for an heir-"  
  
"I'm afraid he asked something far worse."  
  
"That being...?"  
  
"A demon."  
  
Oh typical. Typical, typical Uther.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another rewind- but this time, to only about a day ago.
> 
> Possible answers to possible questions:
> 
> Is there more than one secret door:  
> Yes.  
> Did I write more of the Ygraine poem:  
> Yes. But notepad crashed and I lost it.  
> Did I steal the third line from bottom of my poem from a translation of Beowulf:  
> Maybe. I forgot.  
> Why the chapter title:  
> Blame my mom.  
> Why do none of my made up books have titles:  
> The practice of giving titles to books is actually a fairly recent invention, and many medieval manuscripts were simply referred to by an 'incipit'- aka an excerpt of the first few words. 
> 
> I plead artistic license on 500AD poetry.


End file.
